How To Change TimeZone on Ubuntu 20.04

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In this wiki article, we will learn how to change the timezone in Ubuntu 20.04 using the timedatectl command.

To check your current TimeZone

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To get detailed information your Ubuntu date, time, and timezone you use the timedatectl command.

timedatectl

Output:

root@vps:~# timedatectl
           Local time: Mon 2020-10-19 14:19:51 UTC
       Universal time: Mon 2020-10-19 14:19:51 UTC
             RTC time: Mon 2020-10-19 14:19:52
            Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)
 System clock synchronized: yes
          NTP service: active
      RTC in local TZ: no

The TimeZone configuration on Ubuntu OS is stored set by the /etc/localtime file. This file is actually a symbolic link to a timezone file under /usr/share/zoneinfo.

To get a basic view of the timezone you can ls the file to it’s symbolic link.

ls -l /etc/localtime

Output:

root@vps:~# ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Apr 23 07:33 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC

The system’s timezone in also written to the /etc/timezone file.

cat /etc/timezone

Output:

root@vps:~# cat /etc/timezone
UTC

Listing TimeZones

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Using timedatectl command to list TimeZones,

timedatectl list-timezones

Output:

root@vps:~# timedatectl list-timezones
Africa/Abidjan
Africa/Accra
Africa/Algiers
Africa/Bissau
Africa/Cairo
Africa/Casablanca
Africa/Ceuta
Africa/El_Aaiun
Africa/Johannesburg
Africa/Juba
Africa/Khartoum
.....

Set your Preferred TimeZone

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Once you have the list of timezones, you can set the one you prefer.

sudo timedatectl set-timezone your_time_zone

Example:

root@vps:~# sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

To confirm your changes were applied by running the timedatactl command.

timedatectl

Output:

root@vps:~# timedatectl
           Local time: Mon 2020-10-19 10:25:51 EDT
       Universal time: Mon 2020-10-19 14:25:51 UTC
             RTC time: Mon 2020-10-19 14:25:52
            Time zone: America/New_York (EDT, -0400)
System clock synchronized: yes
          NTP service: active
      RTC in local TZ: no